Looking for a Huge, 90's Reverb

[Halma]

Thank you! I tried just cutting the HF at 2.5 and turned down the LF Damp and Modulation on Abstractverb's default preset, and that's exactly what I was looking for!

I'm a sucker for 80's/90's style music, and reverb. When I get a job, my other prchase will likely be the Korg Microkeys 61 for the Legacy Collection, mostly for LegacyCell and the M1, and a free controller. Or the other way around.

Glad it worked for you. It took me a reasonable amount of time to gather all thoe informations from numerous HW manuals (esp classic Eventide units), blogs (thx Sean ), papers and forum posts plus a lot of acoustic related stuff I quite don't understand correctly. I read those stuff anyway because there could be some valuable information in it for mortal people like me.

I find it especially useful thinking in those eq regions because it makes things way more easier. Before that I was eqing the shit out of frequencies above 5kHz. Because I always wanted "those shimmer". I later realized that "those shimmer" comes actually from a completely different frequency region. Now I usually concentrate on the 500Hz - 2.5kHz area for further eqing and don't mess around that much with the other ones because of the filters.

I am happy that those information were not that wrong and misleading.

Regards
Sebastian

[V0RT3X]

Making a chain of EQ->Verb->Comp can give you some pretty good results too.

[Asuyuka]

Making a chain of EQ->Verb->Comp can give you some pretty good results too.

That sounds great, too. I just saved a mixer state on FL, consisting of a modified EpicVerb M Room preset, turned mostly dry (~.15 wet), so not too much reverb, bigger reverb from Abstract, and a instance of LFX-1310 with only a small stereo widening on it. I turned down the reverb time on Abstract to around 1 second, and the settings I used above.

EpicVerb is optional, but I think it sounds better to have a little extra reverb from them both than one or the other alone.

Thanks for all the advice! I guess I was looking in the wrong places on what I wanted to do.

I'll probably post a sample later, but I've had a long day looking for work. I need a nap now.

Here's my test track. I got a little lazy and just borrowed a MIDI from my PC copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's Azure Lake, to anyone who's curious. Mixture of Wusikstation, Sampletank, with Independence Free for the drums, FX disabled on all three. I also forget to mention VH-2's Famous Scanner for the organ!

The exact dry setting is actually 0.4 on EpicVerb. LFX has a widen set to 121 percent. It's cheesy, but I was just using it as a test.

https://soundcloud.com/asuyuka/azurelaketest/s-kU502

No credit claimed

[Mister Natural]

I think it's more the technique than the reverb . . .

Respect

[Halma]

Making a chain of EQ->Verb->Comp can give you some pretty good results too.

The comp in the end is a good idea. Especially if you play around with long and low freq reverbs. Lots of lows means lots of RMS means lots of energy (think about speaker movement for a second). It couldn't harm to compress them slightly (!!!) to reduce the dynamic range a little bit and tame the crest factor but if you want to get the most epic booming stuff be careful with that otherwise you will loose a shitload of epicness if you overuse it.

And as Hanz Zimmer mentioned somewhere:"Play your instruments on low velocity!" for that kind of reverb esp. percussion stuff like Taikos or even small Congas & Bongos. If you play them that way you will have less problems with transients (and when it comes to percussion we are talking mostly about transients and ER behaviour) and still get lots of lowend. You just have to crank up the gain.


@Asuyuka: nice track. Sounds good to me as a first and quick test. Definitely last century style.

Regards
Sebastian

[Asuyuka]

Making a chain of EQ->Verb->Comp can give you some pretty good results too.

The comp in the end is a good idea. Especially if you play around with long and low freq reverbs. Lots of lows means lots of RMS means lots of energy (think about speaker movement for a second). It couldn't harm to compress them slightly (!!!) to reduce the dynamic range a little bit and tame the crest factor but if you want to get the most epic booming stuff be careful with that otherwise you will loose a shitload of epicness if you overuse it.

And as Hanz Zimmer mentioned somewhere:"Play your instruments on low velocity!" for that kind of reverb esp. percussion stuff like Taikos or even small Congas & Bongos. If you play them that way you will have less problems with transients (and when it comes to percussion we are talking mostly about transients and ER behaviour) and still get lots of lowend. You just have to crank up the gain.


@Asuyuka: nice track. Sounds good to me as a first and quick test. Definitely last century style.

Regards
Sebastian

Hey, if that's Hans Zimmer's advice, I'd listen! I love his scores!

Halma, Proxima4, and VORT3X, I've copied over your info to a document for posterity sakes. Thank you for the advice.

[codec_spurt]

I like Glaceverb, but only in small doses, and, for some reason, I just don't like Ambience. I've tried it plenty, but never liked it.

Glaceverb can really do the trick sometimes. Don't ever be ashamed to use it if it sounds good on your program material. When you learn the sound of it, and have better reverbs you will find it limited and maybe a bit metallic, but for starting off it is very high quality and can help you tune your reverb ear.

Ambience is a damn fine reverb, though I also find it slightly over rated. A comparable one is Jeroen's http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-reverb/ - you can buy the whole pack for 20 bucks, though I know money is tight at the moment for you, but you do get 10 high quality plugins.Not sure how equivalent this one is to his free one: http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/ Omniverb.


When you get some money, check out this - it might not suit your purposes, but it's definitely worth a go:

Verbiage. http://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/s ... /verbiage/



And for free, if you don't have these then I suggest you dl them:

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/liquid-verb-by-sonicxtc

http://www.kresearch.com/Free-Series.htm


Both of these are very nice sounding reverbs with a greater depth than Glaceverb, and of course they are free.


But yeah, when you get the money, get the Valhalla Vintage Verb or/and the Sknote Verbtone. Valhalla might be more versatile, but so far (in my limited experience) Verbtone is just lusher than lush. Hungry on CPU though. Be warned. And with latency so only to use on the master bus.

Another great alternative if you like plates is Audio Damage ADverb: http://www.audiodamage.com/effects/prod ... ?pid=AD012

It is super light on Cpu and again, it might not be the most versatile, but what it does, it does very well, and you will find probably it is what you want done most often, great on guitars, vocals and drums. A truly exceptional reverb with an exceptional interface.


If I were you, I would dl the free stuff I mentioned, then save up and get Valhalla Vintage Verb and ADverb.

I bet you would be happy in reverb land for years with that.


The Valhalla Vintage Verb has many different algorithms, but its plates are second to none so no worries there. The SKnote is a physically modeled version of the developer's own home made plate reverb, loosely modeled on the king/queen of plate reverbs - the EMT-140 Classic Plate iirc. And the ADverb is modeled after a Lexicon unit that excelled in emulating the plate sounds.

Don't quote me on any of that, I'm probably a bit muddled, and it is probably too much information anyway, but the VVV, ADverb and Verbtone are the reverbs to beat in this class at this price imho.


But for free, to recap:
KR-Reverb FS R1.2.1
Omniverb
Liquid Verb

Oh and while you're at it, why don't you dl the most excellent Kjaerhus Reverb too, from the Classic collection, hosted here:
http://www.acoustica.com/plugins/vst-directx.htm

You also get -

Chorus
Compressor
Delay
EQ
Flanger
Limiter (Great for mastering)
Phaser
Reverb
Auto-Filter

All in a 3 MB dl.


cheers.




EDIT:
Just saw this thread - about KR-Reverb -

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=236283

[codec_spurt]

Just read the rest of the thread. Sorry for jumping in.. you know... when you got something to say...


Anyway, that's all good.

But maybe you should try the Melda MReverb if you ever get the chance. Yes you have to pay for it, but it is in a comparable price range to the others I just mentioned. And a sale is never too far away from this generous developer. I paid 10 bucks for mine .

http://www.meldaproduction.com/plugins/ ... id=MReverb


Anyway, there are three reasons why I think you might really like it:

1: Superb reverb sound. Ok, I'm a bit of a deaf mutt with cloth ears when it comes to reverb. But I have used the real units and I do have some pretty world class software units now too. MReverb might not be the best of the bunch, but I stand by what I said before - it is an exceptionally good and very under rated reverb.

2: Very useful gating facility. You can instantly gate the tails of the reverb from within the plugin. This makes it very quick and very powerful to use. Say if you just want to cut the gate time to the beat of the drums.

3: Awesome built in EQ. You will use this more than you can ever imagine. You will cheat with this. You will feel dirty. You will do it anyway. Superb EQ - very powerful and the way it is built into the interface with the other functions... Just pure win.


But this doesn't just do gated drum sound type stuff, it can do very big and luscious spaces too. Search for threads about it on KVR. A lot has been said about it already.

I revisited it after getting my new reverbs, and I don't take back anything I said. MReverb is a world class reverb!

What it 'may' lack in pure reverb sound, it 'more' than makes up for in its versatility and ease of use. I'd even go so far as to say, that this might even give you the most bang for your buck if you really had no money and needed a high-quality reverb unit. Probably the most under-rated reverb on the market today.


cheers.

[cosmosis]

Glaceverb... Ambience is a damn fine reverb, though I also find it slightly over rated.

TBH, all these freebies that I've been using for years (Ambience, TALs, MVerb, Epicverb) It seems like now they all sound metallic to me , and also some popular paywares I've tried but don't wanna name. I gotta say I've been mostly just a guitar player for most of my life, and the only hardware reverbs I've ever owned were the good old springs in my Bandit and a few random digital multi-pedals, so i don't have much experience in general.

Maybe I still don't know how to work the dampenings or filters, maybe I still have it in my head to filter out lows, let highs go by. I've meddled with the screens of Ambience so many times, for example, and I just can't get a dense, smooth, natural sounding tail. That really doesn't stop me from using it though, but I wish I could get better sounds out of it/them. Maybe it's time to copy a bunch of freebies to my folder and try them again? Or maybe look for an SOS article?

BTW, I really like the sounds I get from the Reflex freebie, but I don't think it can do a normal reverb without it being broken up in delay tap type things. But to me it sounds dense and beautiful. Maybe it doesn't have enough controls for me to break it.

I know about Valhalla, and I'd love to try them out and maybe support the dev, but ATM I don't have my tower and I can't run it on this machine. Same applies to other things.

And if I may ask (to anybody reading), what would you say it's a world-class smooth-sounding free single impulse response (a single name, but it can be in a pack)? I'd like to see what you guys call great, and I can't really mess that up, can I?

Also, thank you Halma for the tips, and sorry about the hijack

[codec_spurt]

Glaceverb... Ambience is a damn fine reverb, though I also find it slightly over rated.

TBH, all these freebies that I've been using for years (Ambience, TALs, MVerb, Epicverb) It seems like now they all sound metallic to me , and also some popular paywares I've tried but don't wanna name. I gotta say I've been mostly just a guitar player for most of my life, and the only hardware reverbs I've ever owned were the good old springs in my Bandit and a few random digital multi-pedals, so i don't have much experience in general.

Was that a Peavey Bandit?

I used to have a Classic Hybrid amp for years, it probably had the same springverb. Yes it was pretty special. But we go from hearing things with two ears to listening to simulated environments sometimes with headphones..


But I'm sure you know that already and you hear what you hear..


Reverb seems to be the one effect more than any other that REALLY divides opinion.


So the more input the better. A lot of people keep their mouth shut and tow the line. But I must say, the Valhalla stuff is exceptionally good...




I didn't know why first of all, but after a while...

[codec_spurt]

TBH, all these freebies that I've been using for years (Ambience, TALs, MVerb, Epicverb) It seems like now they all sound metallic to me , and also some popular paywares I've tried but don't wanna name.

It probably doesn't help you much seeing as it doesn't have a demo - you have to buy before you try, but I'm sure you wouldn't have any problem getting another plugin for your money or even getting your money back from here: EOS -

http://www.audiodamage.com/effects/prod ... ?pid=AD023


This one is supposed to be very deep and airy.. and dense..

I believe Sean from Valhalla developed the algorithm but I might be very wrong.


You can check out quite a few others for free though to narrow down what you like, then again that probably won't help much .. as subjective as it is.




cheers.

[Andywanders]

Here's another freebie for you to try...

http://www.vacuumsound.de/plugins.html

Poorplate

Worth a shot maybe

[valhallasound]

Was that a Peavey Bandit?

One of the times I saw Shellac, the bassist (Bob Weston) was taking questions from the audience. The question came up: "What is inside of your custom amp?"



Weston's reply: "A Peavey Bandit."

I think pretty much everyone has owned or played through a Peavey Bandit during some part of their career. I played through the Bandit's baby brother, the Backstage 30, for years.

Sean Costello

[Halma]

... TBH, all these freebies that I've been using for years (Ambience, TALs, MVerb, Epicverb) It seems like now they all sound metallic to me , and also some popular paywares I've tried but don't wanna name. ...

Maybe they share all a similar approach by using the same idea: M. Schroeder's comb filter or allpass delay concepts. You can achieve a similar effect by using very short ms settings on a delay. Dial up feedback (+/-) but be careful. If you have a ping pong delay and perhaps some kind of diffusion settings dial that one in to reduce frequency ringing. Or dial up some feedback in a chorus unit if available and play around with it and the ms settings. You will hear a similar effect.

I think I realized that there must be more than a single reverb algorithm after reading eventide H8000 manuals. Boy, those multi fx units are the bomb. Unfortunately I don't have access to one but I would like to. Looks like "Reason in a box". Chain your stuff in unbelievable ways. Only sky is the limit (well, and if the HW limit is reached of course).

To get an idea about the pure awesomeness hit up google and search only for the preset manual. More than 120 pages only for that one. 2k patches or even more.

I think that's what the separates the boys from the men. The amount of control of the different settings and how a developer gives you access to them via the gui. Some of them are pretty simple, others way to complicated. And gifted devs combine some elements and ideas and invent new ones to make it easier for the user.

One concept of hf damping might be only reducing hf content while an advanced one will introduce further modulation but both share the similarity of using one knob for this. But the last one might sound better because the dev had a vision how to improve this.

Regards
Sebastian

[Halma]

...

And if I may ask (to anybody reading), what would you say it's a world-class smooth-sounding free single impulse response (a single name, but it can be in a pack)? I'd like to see what you guys call great, and I can't really mess that up, can I?

Also, thank you Halma for the tips, and sorry about the hijack

No problem mate.

I could not name you a good IR because I have not used them a lot but I bet it is one from the free BricastiM7 library.

And if I remeber correctly there is one preset from either Eventide or Lexicon that is pretty sought after because of it's classic sound. Maybe something with "Dark" or "Chamber" (or even dark chamber???). Not quite sure if this one exist as an IR and if it's free.

And it could be a cool plate (like an EMT) or spring IR too because I find them quite hard to synthesize.

Sry that I could not give you a better advice but I am more into algorithmic reverbs.

Regards,
Sebastian